Italian tennis player Matteo Arnaldi was forced to retire after just 40 minutes of his first-round match at the ATP 500 in Washington against compatriot Lorenzo Musetti, with the score at 6-0, 3-1. The 25-year-old from Sanremo walked to the net and pointed at his foot, immediately raising alarm bells over a physical issue that has plagued him since 2025.
Arnaldi's foot trouble first emerged during the Australian Open in early 2025 — coincidentally during another match against Musetti. What began as discomfort escalated when a left ankle problem caused a compensatory overload on his right foot. The hard-court season in the Americas became a test of endurance: Arnaldi pushed through the US Open and the Asian swing with painkillers, eventually reaching a point where even medication stopped providing relief.
By August 2025, Arnaldi could only sustain an hour to 90 minutes of training before pain forced him to reduce intensity. The issue affected his sliding and serve in particular. An off-season break was expected to resolve the problem, and scans in Australia showed no structural damage — yet the pain persisted.
"I can train for 30 or 40 minutes without issues, then the pain comes back," Arnaldi admitted after losing to Andrey Rublev in Melbourne. "An hour of a match, especially the way I play, doesn't exist."
The clay season offered a reprieve. Gentler on the joints and more forgiving on footwork, the surface allowed Arnaldi to rediscover his game. He won the Challenger 175 in Cagliari in May, confessing he had arrived in Sardinia full of doubts but finished the tournament pain-free. That form carried into Roland Garros, where he stormed to the semifinals — a career first at a Grand Slam — playing nearly 20 hours of tennis over two weeks.
But fate had a different twist. A severe intestinal virus with fever and vomiting prevented him from contesting his maiden Grand Slam semi-final against Flavio Cobolli. At Wimbledon he declared the foot was no longer hurting, though he acknowledged that surface transitions remained a delicate matter.
The return to hard courts in Washington now suggests the problem was never truly resolved — only managed. No official diagnosis has been released, and no timeline for recovery has been established. Arnaldi's immediate schedule remains uncertain as medical evaluations continue.
The retirement also marks an unfortunate pattern: the last three all-Italian derbies on the ATP Tour — between Arnaldi and Berrettini at Roland Garros, Arnaldi and Cobolli (walkover), and now Musetti-Arnaldi in Washington — have all ended prematurely without a concluding point being played.
Sources
- https://www.ubitennis.com/blog/2026/07/28/arnaldi-un-altro-stop-per-problema-al-piede-valutazioni-in-vista-dei-prossimi-tornei/
- https://www.tennisitaliano.it/atp-wta-washington-il-programma-di-oggi-in-campo-il-derby-arnaldi-musetti/
